WWE’s merchandising partnership with Fanatics continues to be lucrative for both companies. Executives from both companies, including Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque, Nick Khan and Fanatics’ CEO Michael Rubin were among the business leaders who spoke at SBJ’s CAA World Congress of Sports conference earlier this week in Los Angeles, CA.
Fanatics works with some of the world’s top sports leagues, including NFL, NCAA, MLB NASCAR and many more. Rubin has seen it all, but even he underestimated the insatiable demand for WWE merchandise.
“The biggest growth sport in my mind Well, are we looking at percents, dollars? What’s wild, I’ll tell you honestly, what’s going on with WWE is insane. If I look at the growth in our WWE business, and it’s a big business already, it’s absolutely insane.”
“NFL is a multi-billion dollar business. Baseball is a multi-billion dollar business. We look collectively within our overall business, if you talk about growth percent, what’s going on with WWE is spectacular.”
When WWE and Fanatics announced their long-term partnership in 2022, Rubin explained it was a great fit. “WWE is one of the most widely admired sports and entertainment properties worldwide, and it made perfect sense to activate many parts of our Fanatics global platform to create a first-of-its-kind, all-in fan experience.”
His statement in the press release continued, “From e-commerce and licensed merchandise to trading cards and more, we’re going to offer up an incredible set of capabilities to help WWE’s passionate fans worldwide celebrate their favorite Superstars, marquee events and the WWE brand overall.”
For more, check out Sports Business Journal’s coverage of the WWE panel at the conference: Levesque, Khan tout WrestleMania, Netflix deal
H/T to Arash Markazi from The Sporting Tribune on his coverage of the World Congress of Sports
